A short time ago, Friendfeed co-founder Paul Buchheit confirmed what had been rumored on a few tech blogs over the past week (including VentureBeat and TechCrunch) .... advising the Friendfeed community (below - click to enlarge) that the beta is now active for current and new Friendfeed users.
As I write this, comments are already pouring in, not only under Paul and Bret's posts, but in the new Friendfeed Beta room as well.
Many had been seeking an improved interface for a while. I commented on it the other night with a "Friendfeed needs a new dashboard", as I follow in excess of 900 Friendfeeders, my stream had become a little 'difficult to manage' :) Others had started limiting their followers (and follow backs), or tried experiments with a second account.
In my case, I blocked Twitter on Friendfeed and made other changes which were noted here in a piece last week.
The changes in the beta are explained in Bret's blog post here.
Update: I expect to do a follow-up post tomorrow. Wandering through the Beta so far, there's a lot more there than appears in the 'official announcement'.
You can check out the Friendfeed beta now at http://beta.friendfeed.com, and log-in with your regular user name and password.